Themed Resources

South Asian Art

This teaching resource highlights eleven works of art that reflect the diverse cultures and religions of South Asia and the extraordinary beauty and variety of artworks produced in the region over the centuries.

This teaching resource features twenty-five remarkable works of art from the Museum’s collections and uses them as inspiration for an array of writing activities for K-12 students. The works of art represent a wide range of time periods and cultures, and the writing exercises include narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive writing, as well as poetry. Looking to Write, Writing to Look is generously supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.

Art Speaks

Art Speaks is a museum visit program designed specifically for fourth-grade classrooms in Philadelphia public schools. The focus is art and the many ways we can learn about and respond to what artists create. The learning strategies are literacy based and connect to The School District of Philadelphia’s fourth-grade language arts curriculum.

Works of art made of metal are decorated through a variety of methods, which are referred to as finishing techniques. These techniques can be classified into two major categories: chemical (by chemical processes) or physical (by mechanical means). This teaching kit describes several finishing methods along with a brief history of their use.

This teaching kit uses four themes—Stories, People, Things We Use, and Nature—as lenses for looking at works of art in the Museum's collections. Included are objects and images from a variety of time periods and cultures.
Learning to Look: Works of Art Across Time and Cultures was developed by the Division of Education and made possible by the Comcast Foundation, The Delphi Project Foundation, and Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company.

Asian Art Teaching Kits

These three teaching kits focus on the arts of Japan, Korea, and China. Each kit includes slides, image cards highlighting works from the Museum's Asian arts collection, and a video, as well as a resource book featuring looking questions, related classroom activity suggestions, a map, time line, glossary, and bibliography. A CD-ROM version of all the elements in the kit is also included.

Asian art teaching kits are made possible by a generous grant from the Freeman Foundation of New York and Stowe, Vermont.

This kit features ten objects in the Museum's Japanese collection. Works of art from a variety of mediums and eras have been chosen, from a 4,000-year-old ceramic Jōmon Jar to a nineteenth-century woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai.

Focusing on the Museum's collection of Korean art, this kit introduces students to ten different works. A wide variety of objects and eras have been chosen, including an eighth-century bronze Buddha and eight hanging calligraphic scrolls by a contemporary Korean artist.

Ten different works in the Museum's collection of Chinese art are featured in this kit. The works of art chosen represent different mediums and eras, from a 4,500-year-old ceramic Banshan Jar to an embroidered robe for a Daoist priest made at the end of the nineteenth century.

This set includes works of art in the Museum’s collection made by African American artists from the Civil War through the Civil Rights movement. Featuring the works of both known and anonymous artists.

This set features six works of American art from the Museum’s collection that were made during the late 18th and early 19th century, including John Singleton Copley’s Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin and Charles Willson Peale’s Staircase Group.